TALIHINA – Don Faulkner said he knew the day was coming when someone would take the keys from his town’s economic engine. The former Talihina mayor and current town trustee said closing the Oklahoma Veterans Center there would cause serious harm to the municipality. So he is working to show that the State Veterans Home is viable and shouldn’t be relocated.

If the center closes it could cause the town to default on construction bonds that covered part of $5.05 million in upgrades to the municipal drinking water plant. Local officials will have to raise water bills if they lose their largest customer.

“That will be a serious hardship,” Faulkner said. “The average per-capita income here is $19,000 per year and that’s pretty low. We need everything we can get.”

The Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs issued a request for proposals on June 25 for site selection for the Talihina Veterans Center. The request seeks an RFP for the purchase or donation of developed or undeveloped property on which to relocate the Talihina State Veterans Home. The location must be within 90 miles or two hours from the rural southeastern Oklahoma town.

The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services and the state veterans agency will consider several criteria in evaluating the RFPs, including workforce availability, local support services, suitability of the proposed property, economic indicators of the area and how operations will maintain continuity during the transfer, according to the document.

The Talihina center is one of seven licensed nursing homes for veterans. It’s authorized to hold up to 175 residents. About 27 percent of its licensed beds have been out of use since 2017, due to mold and other operational and facility-based considerations, the RFP stated.

Lawmakers have scrutinized the center for a few years after the deaths of two veterans. U.S. Navy veteran Leonard Smith died Jan. 31, 2017 after choking on a plastic bag. He had late-stage dementia at the time of his death. Owen Reese Peterson, a Vietnam veteran, died on Oct. 3, 2016. He was found with maggots in wounds on his body.

Faulkner said the reasons he was given in 2015 for closing the center were that the facilities are deteriorating and it is difficult to get qualified staff members to work there. The center is required to have 2.85 hours of staff per patient and as of February has 4.1 hours of staff per patient. Faulkner said there was a staffing shortage previously when a staffing agency was advertising in Oklahoma City publications. Once the center advertised locally, they were able to hire more employees than the minimum requirements.

Talihina Chamber of Commerce Director Vera Nelson said it has been hard to keep employees there, but the bad publicity surrounding the center has hurt. The veterans center is the town’s largest employer. She said she’s concerned people will move away if it closes.

“If you don’t have a job, then you won’t buy a house, and then what?” Nelson said.

Faulkner said part of the reason why Talihina made upgrades to its water plant was to help serve the Veterans Center, as well as to meet state environmental requirements. It buys between $30,000 and $50,000 of water each year.

The ODVA requested more than $15 million in appropriations for the veterans nursing home for fiscal 2018-2019. The payroll alone is about $7.5 million, Faulkner said. The multiplier effect for the center, considering sales taxes and property taxes, is tremendous, he said.

“It’s really frustrating for us,” Faulkner said. “We have 650 acres where they can build on, so they don’t need to move it out of town.”

Faulkner said he’s already approached Gov. Mary Fallin’s staff about his concerns. He said he is waiting for the November election and hopes the next governor will show common sense as it relates to the Talihina veterans center. He said rural residents are getting left behind.

“We’ve seen an effort in the last few years to move everything out of rural Oklahoma,” Faulkner said, “from removing state parks to shutting down and consolidating (Oklahoma Department of Human Services) offices, from Oklahoma City trying to take water from southeastern Oklahoma so they can have kayaks and rowboats and sailboats.

“We are part of Oklahoma too,” Faulkner said. “We are proud of it, but we have to raise the ship together. We can’t suffer together.”